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News of the Hastings Law Library

One of the major differences in searching on Westlaw and Lexis is the default search. If you type in res ispa loquitor in Westlaw, the default connector is OR: you are searching for any document that has res or ipsa or loquitor. Well, that will bring up a lot of irrelevant documents so you need to put the phrase in quotation marks.

On Lexis the default is +2 or within 2 words. So you will pull up all of the documents that have res within 2 words of ipsa within 2 words of loquitor, giving you more focused results. You must put quotation marks around your words to get results with the exact phrase, but at least +2 is more like the default search on all the major web search engines you are used to using: AND.

Westlaw has just added a feature that allows you to change their default. Your basic default search would then be the same on both Lexis and Westlaw.

Just click Preferences, in the upper right corner of the screen, then click the Search link in the left frame. Under the Terms & Connectors heading, notice the Space Connector option. You can set the spaces.

Remember, though: if you want an exact phrase, use quotation marks. This is epecially important for phrases like "employment at will" where employment within 2 words of will could get many variations: employment that will, employment status will, employment contract will...You get the idea.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Google's Beta Patent Search Engine covers the entire collection of patents made available by the United States Patent & Trademark Office — from patents issued in the 1790s through those issued in the middle of 2006, totalling almost 7 million.

Lexis-Nexis hosts the famous Chisum on Patents.

Walker on Patents was first published in 1885 and is now available on Westlaw as Moy's Walker on Patents.

Some books with the basics can be found at the Circulation desk:
~ Intellectual Property : the law of copyrights, patents and trademarks / by Roger E. Schechter
~ An Introduction to Patent Law / by Janice M. Mueller
~ Principles of Patent Law / by Roger E. Schechter

Posted by Julie Horst at 04:20 PM | Permalink

The library has a number of resources and study aids that may be helpful to students. Many are available at the Circulation Desk in the First Floor Library and can be checked out for two hours.

Another place to look is on lawschool.westlaw.com. Go to the home page and click "Survival Guide" (located on the orange bar). There's a section on the right called Exam & Class Prep which links to outlines on FindLaw. Don't overlook the "More resources" menu right below the links list, which contains guides for specific 1L courses.

Computer Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) produces multiple-choice lessons in almost every subject area with answers and explanations. The lessons are available online or in CD (for Windows). Students can get a free CALI CD in the First Floor Library. Or ask for an authorization code from a reference librarian, which will allow online access to all of the CALI exercises at http://www.cali.org.

This link takes you to Study Aids on Lexis which include Area of Law Outlines, Understanding Series and the Questions & Answers Series.

Posted by Julie Horst at 02:40 PM | Permalink

You can search selected municipal codes on Lexis. To drill down to the databases, go to States Legal-U.S | Combined States | Statutes and Legislative Materials | Municipal Codes. There are 34 listed states. If the city you want isn't there, here are a few other resources to try:
* Municode.com has an ordinance database.
* The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies Library maintains a large depository collection of local ordinance codes and charters issued by California cities and counties. Their website includes a list of currently available codes and charters issued in loose-leaf format; links are provided to electronic editions, when available.
* San Francisco's Municipal Codes are available online.
* Finally, the Seattle Public LIbrary maintains a page of links to online municipal codes, arranged by state.

Posted by Susan Nevelow Mart at 12:31 PM | Permalink

To see a list of recent cases organized by topic (including but not limited to: Antitrust, Bankruptcy, Commercial Law, Criminal Justice, Education, Environmental Law, Family Law, Health, Intellectual Property, Labor & Employment, Products Liability, Real Property or Tax), look in the Westlaw Directory under Legal Periodicals & Current Awareness | Westlaw Highlights & Bulletins | Westlaw Topical Highlights.

If you're interested in recent cases by jurisdiction, the following states have summaries of recent federal and state judicial, legislative, and administrative activities: California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas. The state bulletins are found in the Westlaw Directory under Legal Periodicals & Current Awareness | Westlaw Highlights & Bulletins | Westlaw State Bulletins.

Find Circuit Splits: You can read the arguments in each circuit and then decide how the circuit split should be resolved. Find these at Split Circuits - A blog dedicated to tracking developments concerning splits among the federal circuit courts, written by Professor A. Benjamin Spencer from the University of Richmond School of Law.

Look at subject specific current awareness resources such as BNA's International Trade Reporter and Family Law Reporter. These resources list hot topics of current interest to practitioners and academics.

The Lexis Hot Topics webpage is a good place to read about interesting new laws and proposed legislation. Another great source for current topics are newsletters. One way to access them on Lexis is to go to News & Business > News > By Industry & Topic > Legal where you can select categories such as: Banking Law, Bankruptcy Law, Corporate Law, Employment and Labor Law, Entertainment Law, Environmental Law, Health Care Law, Insurance Law, International Law, Litigation, School Law, Securities Law and more.

Posted by Julie Horst at 08:59 AM | Permalink

Here is the list of Lexis classes and individual meeting times. The schedule changes each month so to find out about future sessions, contact Debbie at 415-595-5048.

Posted by Julie Horst at 08:19 AM | Permalink

Currently all of the Library's state codes (besides California) are in storage. On Westlaw you can retrieve the annotated and unannotated statutes from all 50 states. With the Law School Tab as your homepage, you can quickly search by citation using the Find by Citation box on the left. A list of Statutes By State is an option in the Statutes category, just enter your search terms and click the box of the state you are searching. Annotated state codes from every state are also available on Lexis; enter your citation in the Research Tasks | Type a Citation box, or use the Legal | States Legal | U.S. tabs. If you want to search unannotated codes in Lexis, the search format is: unanno ( educational w/10 tax! ). To look at states codes in paper you can either: 1) visit the San Francisco Law Library at 401 Van Ness (at McAllister) on the 4th floor, or 2) page up to 3 volumes from our stored state codes collection using the paging form available at the Circulation Desk in the First Floor Library.

Posted by Julie Horst at 11:17 AM | Permalink